Ahem.  Anyway.  So!  I’ve always been somewhat of an evangelist – but not in the religious sense (although I did go through a phase that could be said to approximate that O.o).  I’ve always been maybe a little too motivated (at least internally) about sharing the music & books that I enjoy with others.   Not so much TV & movies – I just don’t care enough.  But music and books… those are two things I’m way into.

I’m sure some of it is born of the standard loner desire to have others to actually enjoy your interests with – people you can shoot the shit with about your favorite bands or books and know they won’t be out in the cold.  But, there’s at least a touch of genuine altruism in there.  If I really enjoy something, I want to share that in the hopes that it will make someone’s day the way it made mine.

NOW.  I couldn’t tell you what the exact breakdown is between the two, but I’d wager it’s pretty close to 50/50. If you’ve known me long I’ve probably tried to turn you on to some band or another, or maybe even a book.  The funny thing is, for all the time invested, I don’t think I’ve succeeded much.  I’ve had the most headway with music I guess, but I can only think of one or two instances where someone has read a book on my recommendation.  I’m not sure that says anything about me so much as I tend to hang out with people with very different reading tastes than myself.  Which does get lonely I admit, moreso than differing tastes in music.

So maybe that’s why I still blog about books and music (and anything I can’t find someone to yak about with really)?  Talking to the air beats talking to nothing, or so I’ve heard.

In light of all this, I decided to make a nice, compressed list of things that I enjoy recommending to folks, just in case anyone ever happens to be open to that kind of thing.  Not complete of course, but a nice cross-section.

Some of these are my “favorite” things to one degree or another, others are just things that I enjoy talking about, or think deserve more exposure.

Books:

The Illuminatus Trilogy – The only book(s) I still re-read every 18 months or so.   Probably too weird for most people.  If you like weirdness, drugs, sex and a little violence and more weirdness…

The Dune series, particularly if you can make it through to my favorites  – books 4-6: God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse Dune.  Most sci-fi fans read Dune, but for some reason they stop there.  This baffles me as Dune, really, is not even the strongest book of the series (for me).  It’s the most simple, direct and “sci-fi-ish” though, so maybe that’s what does it.  After that, shit just goes off the rails in a way that a lot of casual sci-fi fans might miss, or be pushed back by.

Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead – The closest thing to classics I will touch.  No, I don’t agree completely with Rand’s Objectivism, but I still find the books enjoyable reading and great conversational fodder (when I’ve recently read them, I forget things FAST).

Night’s Dawn trilogy – Absolutely brilliant “hard” sci-fi.  The best written in the last 20 years (ie about the bounds of my sci-fi reading lifetime) IMHO.  Just, just brilliant really.  Lot’s of pages, lots of text, so you’ve got to have a love of the long works to enjoy this but man is it worth it.  I’ve re-read these a few times as well.  I’ve bought the entire series maybe 3 times as I’ve moved and lost (then re-found) older copies and even given the entire series to a friend once.  He has not yet read it.  Some “science” hero he is  ;p.

Mistborn trilogy – One of the best new fantasy series that I’ve had the pleasure of stumbling across.  A far cry from the simplistic lands of Tolkien this series asks a couple of interesting questions: What if the bad guy (Sauron analogue) won?  What if the bad guy winning wasn’t the worst that could have happened?

Serious fantasy fans already have their minds made up about the Wheel of Time series and the Song of Fire and Ice.  I say both are must reads, but the latter may appeal more to non fantasy fans.

Bands:

Starflyer 59 – The old stuff at least, I can’t really get behind the last 3 or 4 albums.  If you’re reading this post you probably know me (?sadly? in 6 years of blogging I haven’t picked up any non friend/family readers), so you’ve probably heard of and heard these guys.   I’m just putting them here (and at the top) for the sake of completion and history – them being the first band that made me want to share music with others and all.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=csPEitRRfuM

Gaslight Anthem – Awesome (but with room to grow) modern rock and roll.  I’ve extolled their virtues on a number of blog posts, so if you haven’t checked them out by now (at least to decide that you don’t like them),  you probably don’t think very highly of my opinion, at minimum.

Airborne Toxic Event -  Another band I’ve pushed a bit on this blog.  A little like the National in genre/sound, but a bit more energetic.

The Crush & Death on Wednesday – two long defunct bands, both of which I really loved and tried to share with others.  The Crush is alt/punk/rock in the grand Twin Cities tradition and DoW is rockabilly/rock/punk a la nothing quite like it at the time.  Both bands that I think had enough commercial appeal to blow up (but never did), and enough chops and genuine flavor to appeal to the rest.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzZwHbxWV28

Elvis Costello – the early stuff mostly. Hard to try and describe a guy who’s worn so damn many shirts.  His first 4 albums are where most of it is at, although there are many, many later tracks that I love as well – I just don’t find the complete albums as enjoyable to listen to.  Here’s a video of one of my favorite EC classics.  The video is from the year I was born…. which is crazy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7JFP6ZOCI

Joe Christmas – another favorite dead band of mine that never really got any kind of recognition. Sadly, the singer’s later bands well, sucked.

Hum – Yep, another dead band.   Post shoegazer droney wall of distortiony awesomesauce.  Albums 3 & 4 should be on any alt music aficionado’s shelf (or iPod) IMHO.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTl8HcvYRqg

Morphine – What is it with dead bands?  Well, not many had a dude playing 2 saxs at once and another on two string slide bass.  Don’t let that scare you off though :).  The saxophonist (?) is only playing one in the vid below, sorry.  Ahh, found one, second vid has the double sax action.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=985JGeGq_tc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6naQ195c_k

The National – NOT a dead band!   A band a certain Science Hero turned me on to that is chock full of awesome nuggets.  Not even sure what to call the sound other than some flavor of indie.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhA9ARZ6pjk

Tiger Army – Pyschobilly!  Like, faster rockabilly basically.  Except they’ve got a groovy little goth theme going on with songs about beautiful death and violence and the like.  Here’s one of their mellower songs:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=–NyHw8rQ3I

TV on the Radio – Another not dead band.  One of the pinnacles of alt/indie “rock” at the moment I think, quality and creativeness wise.   Past Arcade Fire imho, by quite a bit.  Not that there’s any reason to compare the two BUT I keep hearing references (still) to AF as “it”.  TVotR is also “it”.  QUITE.

Here’s an older one of theirs:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHrTOQ18yzU

Let’s call that enough for this post.  Hopefully this was interesting to someone.  If you’ve got the time, and you haven’t already formed an opinion about a given band, at least check out the various song videos.  Good for background noise if nothing else.

1. I Can’t Be With You - Cranberries – This one should be in the last list, as it reminds me of my whole Cuesta period, what I can remember of it anyway.   I was still struggling, trying to stick with the religion thing, I was depressed because I had put off “real” college to stay back with my friends (stupidly), then many of them left, or changed, or whatever.  Another in the long line of idiotic decisions I’ve made regarding my education for completely the wrong reasons…  I had several opportunities to make new friends, and I pursued a few of them, but not enough.  I also passed up some good chances to reconnect with old friends too.  I spent most of this time being dumb.
2. Sidekick – Rancid – This one reminds me of living out on …shit, whatever street I lived on with Kailen, Devo & the rest.  Tim & I used to play together, and I *think* this was one of the songs we jammed on.  Plus, it says “Tim” in the lyrics, so it always reminds me of him.
3. Heartspark Dollarsign – Everclear -Ahh, Everclear.  Man do you suck ass now.  But back in the day they put out two solid rock albums.  And this little gem was on one of them.  This, I think, was one of the first songs Jen & I bonded on.  If we ever had “a song”, this would probably be it.  Some of the reasons should be obvious.   O.O
4. I Drive a lot – Starflyer 59 – The listlessness of post-college graduation, trying (and failing) to find a job in Santa Barbara.  This came out a few years before this period, but this is where the memory deposits me when this song kicks in.
5. Anodyne – Uncle Tupelo -This one reminds me of working at Borders in Santa Barbara. I met some good people there, two of which I’m still in contact with from time to time.  Thanks to one of them (Wayne), I found out about all kinds of new music.  I’m not sure if Uncle Tupelo came out of that, or just from me finally backtracking from Wilco, but I know I bought the CD there with my employee discount :).
6. Baby, I Know what you’re thinking – The Mendoza Line – Another song Jen & I bonded on together.  No idea where we heard this – I think it was ..shit I really have no idea.  But we heard it, then tracked down the band, and consumed.  It reminds me of our first place in LA – pretty sure we were in the living room when we heard it.  So – the radio maybe?  NPR?
7. Underneath - Starflyer 59 – Driving on the empty streets of Phoenix on a warm night.  Jen and I drove out there from LA once…and at night we just drove forever, probably in circles, on these wide open empty streets.  They were laid out in such a nice grid it was nigh impossible to get lost.  The air was wonderful.
8. Staring at the Sun – TV on the Radio – Our second place in LA, the one in Hollywoodish.  I think I heard about them on NPR or something, then a Rolling Stone comment reminded me, so I walked up to Amoeba and picked up the album.  Hearing it reminds me of listening to the album in that tiny little place, and of some of the better times we had in LA in general.
9. Mission Viejo – The Crush – In trying to find something that has hit me since Portland…this is what I get, and I’m not even sure why.  It just reminds me of life here.  I heard this, a cover of a Lifter Puller song that I still don’t think I’ve found the original version of, while trying to hear Lifter Puller after discovering The Hold Steady.  I thought this cover was sick, and indeed it is, and grabbed the entire album, which is also awesome.

Edit, forgot to link to the first part.  HERE.

Like #1, these guys are also now defunct, and also managed to get out 2 discs. What is it about that soph->junior slump? The second album is much stronger than the first, although I think the first is pretty good too – it just lacks some individuality on a per-song basis.

I first heard them covering a Lifter Puller track when I was trying to find Lifter Puller stuff – so I’ve included that cover (Mission Viejo) as a bonus 3rd track.

They are a part of the same scene that spawned The Replacements, Lifter Puller & Dillinger 5 – the Minneapolis/Twin Cities thing I guess.
It was a pain in the ass to find the cds. Actually, it was a pain in the ass for me to find that the cds even existed. There are several versions of the Crush listed on allmusic, and the correct one doesn’t even have a bio or the first CD listed in the discography. I did find this interview with the band – that was the first thing I could find (and the only one for a while). There are some other scattered mentions out there, but tough to find.

I really like the singer’s voice for some reason.
He does have a new project: The Evening Rig. Note to self: order their cd.